Cross Bar Ranch Field School | 2017

Antelope Creek Archaeological Field School at Cross Bar Ranch | 2017

In 2017, Dr. Britt Bousman and graduate student Sarah Himes led four weeks of hands-on training in archaeological field methods at the Cross Bar Ranch, a picturesque area in the Texas Panhandle with extraordinary preservation of Antelope Creek farmsteads and archaic hunter-gatherer sites. The field school will be based at the Cross Bar Ranch, which is located 15 miles north of Amarillo, Texas, within the spectacular Canadian Breaks in the Southern Plains.  Students also had access to the renown Alibates Flint Quarries. The final week was spent in San Marcos, learning artifact classification and curation methods at the Center for Archaeological Studies lab on campus.

The field school focused on teaching students the essential research skills required in traditional archaeology and took place on the northern edge of the Southern Plains overlooking the Canadian River valley with incised canyons and vast prairies. Students excavated a small Antelope Creek farmstead, know as 41PT96, which overlooks the Canadian River. Students also learned how to conduct archaeological surveys. This research was part of an extended project that focuses on the archaeology of the Southern Plains. Past groups have excavated two other sites on the Ranch and continue to provide important evidence of these unique inhabitants of the Southern Plains.